After Chuck's Workshop
For those who attended Chuck Palahniuk's writing workshop last week, I want to show you my resulting story. P.S. Grace wears slippers indoors.
1941 San Francisco
December 8, 1941. The San Francisco Chronicle headline read “US AT WAR!” in the largest font Grace had ever seen on the newspaper. She grabbed her husband and said, “Oh my God, Henry. What’s going to happen to us? What’s going to happen to my brother in Tokyo?”
After Henry finished skimming through the paper, he offered it to Grace but she was so agitated, she just took it and added it to the small stack on the kitchen floor next to Benny’s empty water dish.
“Maybe you’d better send a telegram,” said Henry.
Grace’s hands shook as she washed their breakfast dishes. She didn’t notice the urine on the floor until she bent down to pick up Benny’s dish to add water. Poor old Benny. He’s getting worse. She took the newspaper off the stack and let it soak up the puddle. The old dachshund looked up at her with guilty eyes shining dark against his white face. “Why are you so thirsty, Benny? What’s wrong?” she said.
She took off her apron, grabbed her purse and slipped on a pair of Mary Janes over her socks. “I’ll run over to the Western Union,” she said. She didn’t bother pulling up the heels so her shoes clomped as she walked.
But a long line of worried Issei were already waiting outside. I can’t wait. I’ve got to do something now. My postcards. She kept a few stamped postcards in her purse to send to Robert when she had a free moment. Funny cards she picked up here and there to keep his spirits up while he studied at Papa’s alma mater in Tokyo. She imagined her brother putting the postcards on the wall to mark the years that had already gone by since she left him in Tokyo. She knew the chances of this postcard getting through were slim now that war was declared between her birth country Japan and her home country America. But she had to try. She chose one postcard with an illustration of a dachshund sitting up and smiling. It had caught her eye because the dog reminded her of Benny when he was younger. She scribbled on the back with a pen she had picked up at the library:
Dear Bobby,
I thought the worst day in my life was when Mama and Papa were killed. And then when I left you in Tokyo. But now, today is. I’m almost glad Papa isn’t alive to see this. I’m sure his heart would have been broken.
Henry still thinks everything will work out - he’s such an optimist!
I love you very much and pray for your safety
Your big sister,
Grace (and Benny)
She read her words to herself. Why did I say - pray? I don’t believe in God any more, do I? Oh, well. It’s too late to cross it out now. After dropping the card in a post office box, she rushed back to their apartment and broke down in tears. Henry gathered her up in his arms. “Honey, did you get your telegram sent?” he asked.
She said. “All I could do was send a postcard, as usual.”
“That’s all right,” Henry said. “I sent a letter to the Chronicle. Nothing else I could do.”
The next weeks were a blur of panic. Henry’s father down in LA was suddenly picked up by the FBI. His younger brother Jake called to tell Henry their mother was so upset she got sick. Grace heard him reassure Jake, “The FBI must be acting under rogue elements. They’ll bring Dad back. After all, he’s just a fisherman. It must be a mistake.”
But it was no mistake. All the Issei men, except the most elderly, were rounded up by the FBI and taken away to some undisclosed location for questioning. Grace thought, Papa would have been taken away, too.
Then a day later, Jake called to tell them he had been kicked out of his university. She heard Henry tell his brother, “Try and apply for a transfer to another university inland or on the East Coast.”
But a week later, Jake told them the Registrar said his transcript was destroyed “in the name of national security.” There goes his chances for an undergraduate degree in accounting.
Even her part-time job with the library was deemed dangerous. Her supervisor, Clara said, “I’m so sorry, Grace. I’m going to have to let you go. It’s ridiculous. My boss thinks it’s a security risk to allow you in the library.”
“What about the children?” said Grace. She usually did story time for the young Japanese American kids from the neighborhood.
“Even the children. I asked my boss how five year olds listening to “The Poky Little Puppy” would threaten American security, but she wouldn’t listen,” said Clara.
Grace was stunned. How can this be happening?
Even after Grace told her husband she had been fired, Henry remained optimistic. “President Roosevelt won’t let us down,” he reassured Grace.
Henry’s letter to the San Francisco Chronicle appeared on December 19, 1941 under the title Without Hyphens
Sir:
The American citizens of Japanese ancestry who have lived in San Francisco all their lives are grateful to the good people of the Bay Region and San Francisco for the kind, considerate treatment given them during the past week.
It is a veritable nightmare to us that such an effrontery has been attempted against the United States by Japan. We are ready to co-operate in every possible manner with out country, which is the United States of America, in all phases of emergency activities.
We are true Americans (no hyphens!) among Americans all.
Japanese American Citizens’ League of San Francisco.
HENRY UYEDA
But by that time, rumors were spreading like wildfire across the city about “getting rid of all the Japs.” The banks stopped letting Japanese Americans withdraw their money. Henry tried talking with the bank manager but was told, “Sorry, we’ve been told to freeze all Japanese accounts.”
Almost four months after Pearl Harbor, the pot came to a boil. Government posters suddenly appeared around their neighborhood, ordering "all persons of Japanese ancestry, including aliens and non-aliens" to leave their homes on April 7. At first, Grace was confused. Non-aliens? Then she realized they meant American citizens. Nisei like Henry and her brother Robert. She was speechless. Exactly one week to leave home? Where are they taking us?
All of Henry’s efforts over the past years - organizing patriotic speech contests, participating in community events, writing letters to the paper - seemed to have been for naught. But Henry was still not willing turn against the government.. “It’s a national emergency. All we can do is cooperate. Until things calm down and people come to their senses,” he said.
There was no time to say goodbye to friends. No time to make arrangements. The soldiers instructed them, “Each person will be allowed two suitcases. Only what you can carry.” Grace wondered how families with children were dealing with this situation. At least, she and Henry only had her dog Benny to worry about. But her heart sank when she realized Benny would probably not be allowed to come.
Grace managed to talk Clara into letting her have a corner of a storage unit in the library basement for their belongings. But Clara tearfully told Grace, “I can’t allow any family photo albums or anything Japanese that might compromise the library.” Grace wanted to scream. What am I supposed to do? Burn Mama and Papa’s wedding photos?
But the most difficult task was to put down Benny. He was too old to foist on some one else like she did six years ago when she went to Tokyo with Robert. Helen had been so good to take care of Benny when Grace went that time. She tried and failed living in Tokyo and was back in a month thanks to Henry’s sudden marriage proposal which allowed her back in even though she was technically an alien. But who knew how long it would be this time until she could come back home? Weeks? Months? Years? Forever?
Now Benny’s face was so white with age, he looked like a ghost dog and besides, his bladder control had gotten bad enough that Grace had to watch where she stepped. “Poor Benny’s not going survive another separation,” she told Henry. Anyway there was no time to see if Helen, who was up in Seattle, might be willing to take him again. No, it would be better if she put him down here in San Francisco. But there wasn’t any time to take Benny to a vet. They’d have to do it themselves. Henry offered to do it but Grace said, “No. I’ll do it. He’s my dog.”
“How are you going to put him down?,” he said.
“I’ve just picked up my perscrption,” she said.
“Grace, you need those pills,” he said.
“I can’t sleep anyway. With everything going on,” she said.
That night, Grace crushed her sleeping pills and mixed them into Benny’s favorite meal of hamburger and rice. As she mixed her dog’s last meal, Benny came waddling over and waited quietly at her feet. The old dog’s dark eyes shone like coals against his thin white face. When she placed the bowl on the ground, he gratefully ate every bit and licked the bowl clean. Thank God I didn’t have to force feed Benny, she thought.
The three of them went into their small living room where Grace and Henry sat on the well worn sofa. “Come here, Benny,” Grace said as she helped her dog onto the blanket on her lap. Henry sat beside her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. Grace had to say good bye to her last connection to Mama and Papa who gave Benny to her fifteen years ago. The old dachshund looked up at her with his adoring eyes and weakly wagged his tail.
In a soft voice, Grace began slowly singing:
Oh, ain't she sweet?
Well, see her walking down that street
Well, I ask you very confidentially
Ain't she sweet?
She felt her dog relax and his warm piss run through the blanket to her legs.
Well, I ask you very confidentially
Ain't she sweet?
I hope Benny remembers the first time I sang for him. When he was just a puppy on my tenth birthday. That was ages ago. Back in Seattle with Mama and Papa. Grace repeated the song over and over until her voice grew hoarse. Henry squeezed her shoulder.
“He’s gone, Honey,” said Henry. “You can stop singing.”
This is very moving, Nanako, and equally gripping. The scene with the dog is one that will touch any pet lover.
And on a human level, you've nailed it with your characters. I want to read this novel, I really do. Especially as someone with a keen interest in the period, but not just because of that. Like I said, it's a gripping opening!
Oh man poor Benny! I never thought about what happened to the pets during the forced Japanese Internments during WW2. I live near the Nikkei Museum in Vancouver Canada, and had a chance to visit when they did the exhibit "Writing Wrongs: Japanese Canadian Protest Letters of the 1940s". In these letters Japanese Canadians protested having all of their possessions wrongly possessed then auctioned off while they were interred in internment camps. https://centre.nikkeiplace.org/exhibits/writing-wrongs/
In these grimly polite letters, they never shared whatever happened to the loved pets that had to be left behind! Thank you for sharing this story, it's a heartbreaker!